Observing Thaipusam
It’s been a long day. Yesterday I was up at 5.30am and didn’t finish the day until 2am. Today I was out shooting just after 10am and didn’t get back to the hotel until nearly 10pm. Almost all of that time has been spent with the same group of people, from a small Hindu temple, [...]
Cut
It’s been a hell of a day. Actually, it’s been a hell of a week – and, it’s only Tuesday! As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve had a cyst that has been causing me some discomfort. I first suffered with it in Hong Kong, some years back, but it responded to treatment and [...]
The Cult Of Collaboration
Susan Cain is the author of an upcoming book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. She recently penned an excellent NYT op-ed piece entitled The Rise Of The New Groupthink. I’d encourage you to take a read of the article as it covers a lot of important ground [...]
Begin Without Disappointments
I love the title of this old ad, for Western Electric radios: Begin Without Disappointments. It’s my motto for January! I’ve already nailed my colours to the mast for 2012. It’s going to be a fascinatingly different year. The changes have already been made and the new routines feel very good indeed. The important thing [...]
Merry Christmas
Christmas begins tonight in our household. We share a Christmas dinner, say some prayers, open presents, tell stories, and go to bed way too late. Tomorrow we’ll laze around playing with the new toys, take a swim, write thank you notes, go for a long walk and end the day watching a few Christmas films. [...]
What Christmas Means To Me
I love Christmas – I love the serious, spiritual symbolism and the cheesy, crassly commercial chintz. I’ll take it all, secular and profane, theological and nonsensical. Perhaps most of all, I love that, as the Beach Boys so blatantly put it, “Christmas comes this time each year.” With such an open ended love of the [...]
Life, According To Steve Jobs
“When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way it is. And your life is just to live inside the world: Try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life; life [...]
12 For 2012
Around this time last year I wrote two lists; of things I wanted more and less of in my life. Last year’s lists were an exercise in setting goals, articulating hopes and ending frustrations. Yesterday I went through those lists and made some comments. Although it has felt like a frustrating year, it’s good to [...]
Looking Back On My “Goals” For 2011
This time last year I wrote some lists; the eleven things I want more of in 2011 and also eleven things I could do without. Now, as the year draws to a close, it makes sense to look back on that list and see how things panned out. Looking back, here’s the eleven things I [...]
7 Kinds Of People You Need In Your Creative Universe
Sustaining yourself in a creative endeavour, be it photography, music, design, writing or any other art, requires relationships. You can’t do it alone. People won’t just “discover” your work and you’ll struggle to bounce back from the inevitable setbacks and disappointments. Moreover you’ll need folks that can help you stay true to your goals, focussed [...]
Advent Is Coming Again
Bored by Christmas already? Frustrated that the decorations, food and “Christmas Specials” seem to arrive earlier and earlier every year? You are not alone! Here in Asia we seem to be stuck in an endless season of retail extravagance. Mid-Autumn festival runs straight into Halloween and/or Diwali, which crashes into Christmas, which merges into Chinese [...]
Plans For The End Of The World
2010 was a great year for me, loaded with fulfilment, adventure and a surprising degree of success. By contrast, 2011 has been a grind. It hasn’t been a bad year; though at times life and work have been hard to manage. Of course, that’s partly self-inflicted; changing country while taking on a lot of work [...]
Oaxaca’s Soundtrack To Dia de los Muertos
I’ve heard a lot of great music on this trip. A little bit of it was Mariachi, but most has been either upbeat Banda (Brass Band parade music), or heartfelt guitar driven Boleros (and some Tangos). There’s been no bigger surprise, for me, than the quality and energy of the Oaxacan Brass marching bands. Funky, [...]
Why I Love Mondays
I woke up today in Adelaide. Next Monday I’ll wake up in Oaxaca, Mexico. The following Monday I’ll be in Miami and the following Monday, I’ll be back home in Singapore. Four Mondays, four different cities in four different countries. With a schedule like that it’s kind of easy to say “I Love Mondays!” But, [...]
Drifting At The Edge
For the past few days I’ve been taking a break in Adelaide. In many ways it has been the holiday I didn’t quite manage to have in the middle of the year. The days have been slow and measured, with that sense of constructed slothfulness that mark all good breaks from routine. I’m more relaxed [...]
El Mar
I’ve lived most of my life near the sea. I’m most at peace near the water – not so much the beautiful vistas of tourist beaches. But, more often the windswept expanses and harsh rocky coastlines that speak to the unfathomable power of the ocean. El Mar (The Sea) is one of my favourite poems [...]
Tacos, Tequila & Tilt-Shift
OK, that might just be the most poorly conceived heading for a blogpost ever – but it’s the best I could come up with after nearly a week bed-struck with the flu (the photo above is a reflection of how I’m feeling – rusty!). Anyway, in a little over a month I’ll be heading off [...]
Can You Hustle?
Last week I was having one of those really cool meetings that make this whole “creative” work thing worthwhile. Great location, with a cool person I respect, talking about a project I’d love to be part of. Then I was hit with the kind of question that can be (well, for me at least) really [...]
Changing Lanes When There Are No Lanes
We live in an extraordinary era, with the economics of communication totally changing. What do I mean by that? Well, when I was young, we would tune into television or radio and hope to hear people that were interesting (to us), talking about things that were relevant (to us). It was a pretty inefficient process, [...]
Resist And Reboot
It’s now more than a month since I left Hong Kong and the process of adjusting to life in Singapore has begun. People in the local stores are starting to greet me with a smile of recognition and I’m getting to know the neighbours. It’s not hard to imagine this place soon feeling like home. [...]
Daily Routines, Small Rituals
Part of the challenge of moving to a new city is establishing daily routines and rituals. In Hong Kong my days had a pattern and rythmn that had evolved over five years. Sure, in the last few months I was spending a lot more time in cafes and less time at my desk. But, the [...]
Lessons From The Slow Sojourn
I recently had the chance to spend a couple of beautifully wintery weeks in Adelaide, seeing family and generally taking a break from the stress of moving country. As I mentioned previously, my plan was to go offline, take some photos and do some deep and serious thinking about the future. As happens so many [...]
Dark On The Rock
The title of this blogpost is inspired by a comment in Anthony Lane’s New Yorker review of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. “A solemn voice declares, “We were once a peaceful race of intelligent mechanical beings.” Not, as you might hope, a trailer for the Second Republican Presidential Debate but a prologue to “Transformers: Dark [...]
Goodbye Hong Kong
After five years, one month and two weeks, exactly, it’s time to say goodbye. Thank you Hong Kong for all the memories, all the challenges and all the experiences.
Fernando Gros is a musician, photographer & writer based in Singapore. Born in Santiago de Chile, Fernando grew up in Sydney and has also lived in London, Delhi and Hong Kong.